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Stephanie - posted on 05/08/2009

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I'm an elementary school teacher in a mobile-unit classroom--I've been teaching in it for 5 years. My mobile is more than 20 years old and and has no cubbies or a bathroom, but I have two small closets and two built in book shelves. I use the book shelves for my classroom book collection and games. I use the closets for math, science, and art materials.

Book bag/coat storage and organization were the biggest problem initially. I installed a white metal rack (for organizing closets) with a rod attatched to it and parents donated hangers to use for coats. I have students put their lunches/snacks on the white shelf. Also, to go under the shelf, I got those big plastic tubs/bins with the nylon handles (they're sold this time of year at Target and Walmart in their seasonal areas) and I use 4 of those for book bags (students are assigned tubs) and one for playground equipment.

I was able to get a nice-sized book shelf (furniture quality--about 8 feet wide and 3 feet tall) from another teacher that I use for textbook/reader response journal/workbook storage. I use cardboard magazine organizers on that shelf for student notebooks. I also store "table bins" on top of that shelf. These bins are just plastic shoe boxes that have student supplies in them (scissors, white glue, glue sticks, colored pencils, highlighters). I have desks arranged in "pods" or "tables" and each "table" has a bin of supplies (this helps the children because they don't have cubbie storage).

a lot of "portables" are more luxurious than they sound. i taught in a portable classroom for a couple of years. the room was huge! do you get to see the room before you have to make any organization decisions? and what age group do you teach? the portable classrooms i've seen have built in shelves and cabinets, and one huge/long whiteboard. for high school, i arranged the room somewhat like an amphitheater... 3 sections of seats, the side 2 sections somewhat angled. i dunno..i actually didn't find it too different from teaching in a regular classroom, although the built ins were really large and annoying. had to work around them more. the built-in shelves were so deep, they didn't really work for bookshelves either. they were like...counter depth.